Quicken Companies to Hire 500 Interns in Detriot

Check out this article on how the Quicken companies are planning on hiring 500 interns in the Detroit area this summer. It sure would be great if some of the large companies headquartered in Boston, MA would develop similar plans to help stop the brain drain. Below is the link.

http://www.freep.com/article/20120127/BUSINESS06/201270352/Quicken-family-of-companies-to-hire-500-interns?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs

Finding a Great Internship Takes Smarts and Persistence

One mistake students make when looking for an internship is that they think there is someone at their college that will place them in an internship. Most schools do not run placement agencies for internships (or for jobs.) It is up to the student to learn who to search, how to make contacts, and how to respond to leads in a positive, timely, and effective way.

Over the last six years I have worked with hundreds of students who are eager to find the internship that will help launch their careers. Some of these students have had phenomenal results. Others haven't landed anything worthwhile. What separates the students who land a great internship from the ones who come away empty handed? Well it is a combination of smarts and persistence.

The "smarts" part is the starting point. You must learn how to search - using keywords. Our accounting students search for "accounting internships" within a 30 mile radius of campus using Indeed.com. They also attend accounting club functions and meet employers. They tell their professors, their parents, their neighbors, and their friends that they are looking for an internship and they send targeted emails and "snail" mail to prospective employers. Other students talk to current employers and ask to structure a new learning experience and they bring me (internship director) into the loop to help assure that it will all work out.

Other eager beavers go to nonprofits like their local credit unions, the Chamber of Commerce, museums, hospitals, theatres, and government agencies - volunteering their time and energy to work 10 hours a week in an internship. In the nonprofit arena and government agencies, the possibilities are almost endless as for just with service learning or community service, there are so many entities that are in need of student help and there is certainly a business side to nonprofits and government that are crying out for internship help.

Smart students also understand the trends. There is a great demand right now for social networking/marketing which students know how to do better than us old folks. Mastering Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. and making these services work to promote the business goals of profit seeking entities and the missions of nonprofits is a very hot area and one that interns could easily fill.

Start by writing down some goals and then prepare a 5 minute plan that details how you will reach those goals. Be specific and persistent. For example, if your goal is to get an internship, refine that goal a bit. What kind of internship? In which functional area: accounting, finance, MIS, Marketing, general management, HR, or operations management. And realize that an internship in a particular area could involve anyone of a number of concentrations. Take marketing for example. It could be sales, customer service, network marketing, social media, SEO, etc. Take accounting. The internship could be at a CPA firm helping with tax season or it could be in the auditing area. At a large corporation you could be working as a staff accountant or an internal auditor. I have students working at Textron in Providence RI and they are involved in government reporting of accounting data. The point is that the possibilities are quite wide and you may need to do some homework to fine tune your thinking on this.

You may need to look at full-time job postings for ideas. Let's say you are interested in a marketing internship but you are not sure what to focus on. Search for marketing positions on a service like Monster.com or Indeed.com. For example, if you search on Marketing on one of the major job sites, your search will probably turn up position titles such as marketing manager, Internet channel manager, SEO Manager, regional marketing representative, and marketing communication specialists among many others. Reading those position descriptions may lead you to a few select areas that you may want to focus upon when you search for an internship.

Fastenal Internship

Fastenal (www.fastenal.com) has internship positions in a few Massachusetts locations. Contact the following person for more information and to apply:

Becky Anderson

District Sales Manager RI/MA/CT

Fastenal Company

Office: 401-737-4675

Cell: 401-219-1544

E-Fax: 507-494-7961

www.fastenal.com

InternshipKing.com

A relatively new internship web site called InternshipKing.com is looking to establish an online community of interns. The site will offer feedback from students on internship providers. Major internship employers are covered on the site. The founder of the site and blog is Ted Williams (not the Splendid Splinter). Ted is a follower of our internship blogs (Internship Yak and the Business Internships blog http://www.businessinternships.blogspot.com/

Check out InternshipKing at: http://www.internshipking.com/ and their blog is at: http://www.internshipking.com/blog/

Finance Internships KSA

KSA stands for knowledge skills and ability. Here's the KSA for a recent finance internship (financial planning) at a local hospital:

1. Excellent Excel skills. 2. Ability to work independently and with minimal supervision. 3. Accounting/Finance background preferred. 4. Excellent interpersonal skills, ambitious attitude and a fast learner. 5. Excellent organizational and multi-tasking skills. Ability to meet multiple deadlines. 6. Medicare reimbursement experience preferred. Excellent customer service skills. 7. Desire to assist in other department areas on an as needed basis.

Don't let a KSA like #6 (Medicare reimbursement experience preferred) stop you from applying for an internship. It says preferred but if the provider don't find someone with that experience, they will hire the best candidate and that could very well be you!

Testing the Waters

Testing the Waters and Career Clarity

So many first and second year students (and often third and fourth year students) have no clear career plans. They can’t arrive at any real career clarity when looking forward. The answer classic interview question: “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” is as confusing and hazy to many students as “What is the meaning of life?” What can be done to clear your vision?

How do you begin to make obvious your career plans? Since it is quite difficult for anyone to define what job or which precise career path will make you happy and successful, one strategy is to experiment – to test the waters and see what happens. I think that you will agree that so much learning comes from trial-and –error and although experiments do tend to be an inefficient and time consuming way of learning there is often no better way to proceed than with that type of discovery.

So it is true that career clarification may come from the internship testing ground. Some people believe you shouldn’t leave school without an internship; without a chance to experiment in the laboratory called the workplace. When you complete an internship, the hope is that you will have a better idea of what you want to do for a living – at least when you first graduate from school. Career clarity through an internship may also have a much unexpected but equally as valuable outcome. You may finish your internship and decide that your career path is headed in the wrong direction. You may learn that some adjustments need to be made in your pursuit of a career. That too is valuable.

I never completed an internship when I was in school but I always held a job during college. For all of my years in undergraduate school and part of grad school I worked for Sears, the large retailer. I performed a variety of jobs there including working in the receiving department, men’s clothing, carpeting and floor covering, and I even did stints in the TV and stereo department, automotive and sporting goods. Some of those assignments were fun and I loved the variety. I actually could see myself becoming a manager of a few of those departments. I liked the fact that I got to meet people, didn’t have to sit behind a desk, was always busy and was fascinated by some of the products and services we sold. To this day, I use some of my experiences from retailing when I try to illuminate accounting principles in my classes. I am accounting professor and all of my work experiences, including those as a part-timer at Sears, help me with my current job.

When I went to graduate school for my MBA, I also worked as a substitute teacher as I could work until mid afternoon and then go to my classes in the late afternoon and evening. It was a perfect match and I loved the job immensely, the day went by fast, I was dealing with young people which I enjoyed, and in many ways, was my own boss.

When I landed my first full-time job after college, I enjoyed some of the work I did as a professional in the financial services field but I didn’t enjoy sitting behind a desk all day. There also wasn’t enough variety for me. I would think about how happy I was working in retailing at Sears, how each day was different and I would especially think about all the satisfaction I had as a substitute teacher helping students. Those memories made me gravitate towards teaching at the college level. I found my way to a happy career because of my part-time job experiences and coming to terms with what I liked and disliked about jobs. I changed direction and became a college professor and other than the fact that I probably would have made much more money in the private sector, I have never looked back because I have been happy.

Can an internship lead the happiness in your career? I think so. If your internship experience presents more dissatisfaction than joy, isn’t it best to make a change in direction rather than committing to something that will make you unhappy? There are few things worse than being stuck in an uninspiring career or job you hate. Life is too short to dread going to work each day. Use your internship experience to find yourself or to at least find a suitable career path.

When I think about career path choices and finding your way and I think about the career choices I have made, I often think about Robert Frost’s poem entitled: The Road Not Taken. My thoughts hearken back to the last few lines of the poem:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference[1]

Sometimes the “road not taken” is the best move you can make with a career. An internship may guide you away from your first choice for a career and there is nothing wrong with that. The key thing is that you should make progress towards a career that will make you happy and provide you with a good standard of living. I really believe that an internship is a good first step.

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[1] Frost, Robert. Mountain Interval. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920.

Why do an internship?

Reasons Why Students Complete Internships

Are you sold on the idea of an internship? If you are in an internship and trying to earn academic credit then obviously, the answer to my question is – Yes I am sold on the idea. If you are reading this book as preparation to begin the process of landing a great internship but are not quite sure of yourself then I suggest you examine the reasons why students are interested in internships and why many employers see the value of internships.

I am always asking students to email me to let why they want to do an internship. Here are some of the common responses from college students to that question.

• To gain hands-on work experience
• To learn new skills
• To become better prepared to be employed in a specific field
• To make professional contacts for future networking
• To be given a realistic preview of the work world
• To explore a new organization or industry.
• To earn money
• To receive a full-time job offer from an employer
• To receive college credit
• To fulfill degree requirements
• To take part in community service

The above reasons are all great reasons and motivations to do an internship. Employers also provide motivations when they repeatedly explain that a good GPA, a track record of part-time and summer jobs, and participation in student activities and organizations are not enough to help students land a good full-time job. In today’s competitive job market, the students with career-related work experience (internship) are the students who get the best interviews and job offers.

More and more job postings on services such as Monster or Indeed.com mention the expectations or in some cases, the requirement of internship experiences. Students who have completed internships are simply more employment ready than the majority of students who have not completed an internship.

While any one of the above reasons to do an internship are compelling, I advise students to adopt a set of internship goals – objectives to be accomplished during the semester-long journey of an internship. I suggest that these goals be documented – set down in writing so they can become guiding lights. I also suggest that a final term paper for the internship include these goals, how they were accomplished or why they were not seen through to fruition. I try to drive home the idea that the best type of internship is one that is goal driven.